The first big step towards achieving commonality and interoperability of expeditionary basing equipment in the joint force was taken April 13 as the service logistics chiefs came together in Washington DC to sign the Joint Expeditionary Basing Working Group charter.
The lead JEBWG organizations are the Air Force's A4/7, the Army's G4, the Navy's N4, the Marine Corps' I&L/LP and the Joint Staff's J4. The goal of the working group is "Achieving commonality and interoperability through joint solutions."
The members of the working group will review the services' expeditionary basing capability requirements, potential hardware solutions, availability, procurement timelines and current and future acquisition objectives in order to develop common hardware procurement.
That equates to reduced research and development efforts due to less service-unique R&D, officials said. It also equates to leveraging economies of scale and effective and efficient total lifecycle management.
"We are all in tune with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs" of which the first level is physiological needs," said Army Lt Gen. Mitchell Stevenson, the Army's deputy chief of staff for logistics. "In other words, everyone needs food, water, sleep, etc, and the equipment and facilities that accommodate these needs can be standardized across the battlefield."
Lt. Gen. Loren Reno, the Air Force's deputy chief of staff for logistics, installations and mission support, expanded on that point.
"Common procurement and utilization of expeditionary basing equipment decreases the footprint in a deployed environment and places less of a burden on the overall supply chain," he said.
The working group members determined the group's initial focus areas will be tents and insulation, power generation, environmental conditioning units and lighting systems. All of the initial focus areas fall perfectly in line with an ongoing effort at the Army's National Training Center known as the "Net Zero + Joint Capability Technology Demonstration" which can be leveraged to compare "as is" equipment with "potential to be" equipment.
The second phase of focus for the JEBWG will be laundry, kitchens and hygiene systems -- shower, shave, latrine. The Expeditionary TRICON Systems that Army engineers have developed, demonstrated and evaluated in the both operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom are being reviewed by the working group as a potential common hardware solution for the focus areas in phase two.
These two phases cover a lot of expeditionary basing capabilities and can lead to substantial gains in the operational effectiveness of the joint force, according to JEBWG officials.
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